ZSL London Zoo Has Their Annual Animal Weigh-In

On Thursday, August 23, the ZSL London Zoo held their annual weigh-in for all the zoo animals in their care.

ABC News explains, “The Zoological Society of London's zoo is home to more than 19,000 animals. The weigh-in is an opportunity for zookeepers to make sure the information they have recorded is up-to-date.”

Since they are all wild animals, the zookeepers have had to come up with some pretty creative and unique ways to measure each animal. In many cases, snacks and treats were super handy as motivators.

From measuring stick bugs with a measuring tape, luring giraffes to a tall ruler with veggies, hanging meat to weigh tigers, and using a bucket to weigh monkeys, the ZSL London Zoo made sure all their zoo animals got their weight or size verified and updated.

According to a statement released by the ZSL London Zoo, “The annual weigh-in is an opportunity for keepers at ZSL London Zoo to make sure the information they’ve recorded is up-to-date and accurate–each measurement is then added to the Zoological Information Management System (ZIMS), a database shared with zoos all over the world that helps zookeepers to compare important information on thousands of endangered species.”

ZSL’s zoological manager, Mark Habben, explains, “It helps us to ensure that every animal we look after is healthy, eating well, and growing at the rate it should—weight is a particularly important indicator of health, and we can even detect pregnancies through a growing waist line!”